How to Find the Cheapest Flights – Roaming Historian

Want to stretch your travel budget further? With a few strategic searches and the right timing, you can save hundreds—sometimes thousands—on airfare.

If you already know when and where you want to travel, this guide will show you how to find the cheapest flights for your itinerary. If you’re just looking for a cheap flight, you might want to check out Google Flight Deals or sign up for one of the many flight deals newsletters (like Airfare Watchdog). Both of these methods will help you find unbelievable deals and I’ll share a specific post about Google Flight Deals later.

But I can’t travel spur-of-the moment generally, since my work schedule is firmly set by the college academic year. I plan months in advance for a trip, so my tips are centered on similarly suited travelers. Those who feel more comfortable getting their flights squared away long before the trip—this blog is for you. Here is my plan of attack for finding less costly flights.

When to Book Flights

Start planning in the sweet spot. For domestic flights, experts suggest looking 1-3 months ahead of time and 2-6 months ahead for international flights. One expert even drilled the booking window down to 38 days before a domestic and 100 days before international. I don’t think I could ever cut it that close in order to test that theory! You will need to plan earlier than the suggested booking windows for holidays, including Spring Break (early March for colleges, early April for K-12). For business/first class, you will want to look about 11 months out for an international trip, although you can also get a last-minute flight deal if you plan to upgrade.

Best Days to Fly

According to the CEO of Dollar Flight Club, Jesse Neugarten, the cheaper days to fly are Tuesday and Wednesday since there are generally more open seats. Most people don’t want to start or end a vacation or a business trip mid-week, so those days can provide better deals. You might also want to try Saturdays but avoid really pricey days when everyone is looking to fly like Friday, Sunday, and Monday. In short, it has been debunked that there are cheaper days of the week to book flights, but there are days where it is cheaper to fly.

Use AI & Google Flights

Learn the routes. To get the best flight deals, you need to know which carriers are going to the place you want to go and to nearby airports. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) can help. Unlike some popular social media…